The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Self-driving or “autonomous” vehicles generally employ sensors, such as light detection and ranging (lidar) devices, to detect or “see” the surrounding environment as the vehicles move toward their destinations. A single lidar laser cannot scan the entire field of regard at once. Instead, lidar lasers may be configured to follow a scan pattern to scan the field of regard. As the lidar laser follows the scan pattern, a scanner determines depth data by measuring the travel time for light beams that are transmitted by the lidar system and scattered or reflected by objects in the field of regard. Each of these points along the scan pattern are referred to as “pixels” and are correlated to the determined depth data. While the lidar system is capable of scanning the field of regard at high speeds, there is still a time a delay between when the scanner determines the depth data at the various pixels of the scan pattern. Thus, if an object in the field of regard is moving relative to the vehicle, the object may appear to be distorted.